


Brought Low: World building

by gfzoda



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Multi, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, tags will update with each chapter!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-01-14 16:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1272808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gfzoda/pseuds/gfzoda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a series of drabbles expanding upon the characters within my main story, "Brought Low."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bifur- Remembering

Bifur remembers fingers tracing runes that had long gone out of use. He remembers eyes that twinkled whenever a new scroll was unearthed for translation or when lips wrapped around a new, foreign word. Bifur remembers a wordsmith, a linguist with frizzy hair and a form sturdy enough to match his own. If he thinks hard enough, he can remember ruddy cheeks and a laugh to warm his heart.

But the memory that comes easiest to him is listening idly to recitations of a language that had fallen into disuse and was used mostly for royal ceremonies nowadays. Bifur could easily recall sitting by a fireside, coaxing a new shape out of a block of wood while the voice of his One muttered from their desk in the ancient tongue that had always fascinated them. Sometimes when he thinks on this, Bifur also recalls the animated babbling of a dwarfling at his feet and tiny, tiny hands patting at his shins for attention. Bifur know that in this memory he will put down his block of wood and scoop up the child into his arms and whisper to her about what he is carving today.

Oh, how he misses them, the both of them.

Bifur had good days and bad days. On good days, the grief and pain doesn't tug at his head hard enough to make him drown in his own thoughts. Those were the days that talking and signing to people wasn't too hard and he wouldn't need to reach for the trinkets and small puzzles he often kept in his pockets to calm him or distract him from whatever thought he couldn't seem to clear from his mind.

Bad days were the ones were Bifur could barely register what was going on around him. Thankfully, those days had faded into a minority, but when they did come, they hit him hard. They usually started with a pain radiating from the axe in his head and the half-formed screams of his nightmares leaking into his ears even after he had woken up. Those days never included anything less than a perpetual cry building up beneath his tongue, a flash of _bloodbloodeverywhereohgodtheyweregonetohimandhewasalonehewassoALONE_ behind his eyelids, and a tendency to slip into thoughts that circled round and round upon themselves until they formed knots that refused to budge.

Those were the days Bifur stuck close to his baby cousins, as he trusted them to guide him as his mind fought with itself. He trusts them to not allow him to become the shell he had seen so many others become after an accident or raid or other misfortune took away their Ones or their children.

(And if he’s completely honest with himself, there’s a small part of Bifur that wants to scream and demand just what happens when you lose _both_.)


	2. Still pools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwalin thinks on Bilbo.

Dwalin had seen gentle souls die. He had seen their swings falter, and their defenses come up more readily than their offenses, and their movements freeze in terror as their enemies washed over them like water on stone.

But the worst where the ones that decided that right as their enemies were upon them they should pull some sort of Mahal-thrice-damned revelation of mortality shtick.

Those were the ones whose eyes slid from contemplation to horrible surprise and pain right as they met their ends. Those were the ones that screamed the loudest, more out of surprise than pain. Dwalin might come off as flippant and perhaps callous, but he had seen many gentle souls die (he had been at the Battle of Azanulbizar after all), and those were the ones that stuck with him many years later.

So when Dwalin saw the burglar standing waist-deep in prairie grass and getting ready to stare down a warg and its rider with an Elvish letter opener, he was dismayed to see a familiar look of emptiness creep into the burglar’s eyes. Dwalin knew, just _knew_ that the Halfling would be the type to pull this sort of move.

But as quickly as the standoff started, the hobbit was pulled out of the flow and was skittering towards the opening in the rock that they were all headed towards. And that, now that was interesting. And then not a few weeks later the Halfling did it _again_ , only the warg and its rider just so happened to be Azog and his white beast and this was right after he had buried that letter opener of his into the belly of the orc getting ready to finish off Thorin. And naught but a few hours after he had defended Dwalin’s friend and king, the Halfling looked as if the most terrifying thing on this earth would be how Thorin reacted to being saved.

It just… wasn’t logical. Dwalin knew that he had no right to say that the burglar’s reactions were not sincere, but it just did not make sense for a squishy little… hobbit to be more afraid of a grateful dwarf than the orc that was exponentially more cruel and large than Thorin would ever be. 

It was then that Dwalin realized that the burglar was what his da’ would call a still pool. “Still pools always run deep,” his father used to growl as he sharpened his axe. This was usually said into the tense silence before any battle, but Dwalin found in applicable in this case, “Never take a lack of noise for peace. It can get’cha killed it can.”

There was more to the Halfling that his silence and it was likely that Dwalin would never know quite what. The hobbit had been hurt by someone, that much was obvious, but how and why this was was the real mystery. Dwalin just hoped that Thorin would not be the royal arse-munch that he so loved to be and not cock up whatever he had going on with their burglar.

**Author's Note:**

> SO! Here's the first of a few character studies I have planned out for this drabble series. This work is going to be a bit rambling and eclectic, but I hope it helps better portray characters within "Brought Low."
> 
> ALSO! If you want me to explore any characters in specific, let me know! I'm happy to hear your suggestions.


End file.
